By: Pudu Blamoh, Communications Intern, AWDF Having read Shel Silverstein’s much-acclaimed children’s book The Giving Tree years ago, I reflect now and can’t help but compare the characters in that book; the tree and the boy, to women and the world respectively. The Giving tree tells the story of a boy who grows to become a man, […]
This is the last in a series of reflections by Jessica Horn, the outgoing Director of Programmes at AWDF, on programme strategy, organisational culture and feminist transformation We were all perhaps a bit too smug at the start of 2020. The numerology suggested it was going to be an auspicious year. As I write we […]
By Lydia Maclean, Communications & Fundraising Specialist As an organisation with a mission to mobilise financial, human and material resources to support African women’s organisations, the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) has provided over 50 million dollars in grants since its inception in 2001. AWDF is both a grantmaking and fundraising organisation, and therefore […]
African feminist activism has been going through an increasingly introspective moment. A moment when we are considering not just the external politics of our thoughts and practices towards change, but also the impact that all of this is having on our physical and emotional bodies. I think its fair to say that there is a […]
When I entered AWDF House in Accra in my new role as Director of Programmes the first thing I noticed were the walls. Large swathes of blank white space, stretching high above my head, framed on the approach by enormous white columns. I kept thinking about these walls. Their blankness, their apparent indifference, and the […]
Image ©LaylaBird via Getty Written by: Jennifer Donkoh, Communications Associate, AWDF 25 years after the Beijing Platform for Action, women still live in constant fear across the African continent. Despite the signing of the peace agreement in 2018, South Sudan has one of the highest rates of sexual violence against women in the world. […]
By: Sabine Afodanyi, Knowledge Management Intern I began my internship with the African Women’s Development Fund with eagerness and desire to soak in as much knowledge as I can concerning African feminism. I had the opportunity of interning with the Knowledge Management department, which is responsible for archiving and analyzing feminist knowledge produced by the […]
Gender activists from across Southern Africa launch the#VoiceandChoice 2019 Barometer alongside the State of Women in SADC 2019 report. The Barometer has been produced for the last eleven years by the Southern African Gender Protocol Alliance, a network of Women’s Rights Organisations that campaigned for the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development in 2008, its updating and […]
By: Rita Nketiah, Knowledge Management Specialist, AWDF “We claim the right to theorise for ourselves, write for ourselves, strategise for ourselves and speak for ourselves as African feminists.” –The African Feminist Charter Each morning, as I sit down at my desk at the AWDF House, this quote from the African Feminist Charter greets me. It […]
By Nana Akosua Hanson Imagine this: You are walking through a busy street and everybody keeps grabbing at your body parts. You speak up, but you are shut down. You have no right to open your mouth, they say. They grab you some more. Your body is in pain, so you are in pain. It […]